Strange Little Blue Girl
by Celeris
Summary: Oneshot.  Post 2nd Gig.  Batou wanders with City slums remembering his favorite little robots when he has a startling encounter


For some reason, while watching Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig again, I had this rather interesting idea, especially after the way that 2nd Gig ended. And surprisingly, I couldn't find anyone with a similar idea after searching awhile on FFnet. So here I am writing this fiction.

As I have not seen Solid State Society yet, whatever information that comes from the movie does not apply to this fanfiction. Also, the fiction takes place after the end of 2nd Gig, and as such, if no one wants spoilers, don't read.

I do not own Ghost in the Shell, or any of its many incarnations.

--

It had been several months since the incident in Dejima. Section 9 had been disbanded again and resourced to a military unit. But being in the military again and even getting the most advanced think tanks as replacements for the Tachikoma couldn't really shake Batou from the strange feeling of something being missing. And being a military man, that bugged him. A lot.

So in an effort to relieve or distract his mind of that missing feeling, Batou was using one of his free days to just wander around town. He went and visited some of his favorite establishments, looked through some of the market streets, and even went into one of the old antiquated arcades that were still open. But every single place he went to, something reminded him of those little blue tanks that acted like giddy little girls. A shop selling all natural oil instead of synthetic. The elderly home that his Tachikoma had worked that first time they were decommissioned. Various highways the troop of tanks had ridden on. So Batou delved deeper into town, traveling down the slums and waterways.

He didn't know why this was bugging him so much. The Tachikoma had sacrificed themselves to protect thousands of people. Now that was a good way to go out. So why didn't he just let it go like he had many other similar things that had happened during the wars. It was probably because the Major had mentioned that the Tachikoma could have transferred their memories and ghosts (if they had them, which the Major seemed to thoroughly believe) to a open space on the net that they had originally prepared for the refugees with Kuze's plan, before the satellite was destroyed. But Ishikawa and even the Major herself couldn't find any evidence of them anywhere on the net.

Batou started sauntering through an open air bazaar in the slums lost in thought.

Yes, yes, that had to be what was bugging him, that no remnant of the Tachikoma could be found. Not the missing giggles. Not the missing plots to understand human behavior more. Not the strange habits of socialization by the little mechs. Not the way that each one seemed to be developing a different personality. No, it was because his friend's couldn't find anything when they were both experts at searching the web. That was his story and he was sticki-

"WAAAAH!!!" His instincts and enhanced reflexes weren't fast enough to help him dodge the object hurtling toward him. Next thing he knew, he was flat on his ass with some strange…..and really heavy…..person sprawled on top of him.

"Ow. Gomenasai Sir, I wasn't watching where I was going," Batou heard as he looked up. "I still haven't gotten used to these …. rollerblades….yet…."

Both the Batou and the girl paused and stared at each other. Looking at the girl standing above him, Batou saw what he though had to be the freakiest coincidence he had ever come up against (and working with the Major, that meant something). She was wearing a pair of old rollerblades, blue and gray in color, over a pair of gray thigh-high stockings. Above that, a pair of ripped off really short blue denim shorts and a large tool belt filled with random trinkets. Further up, a white tank floated underneath a long sleeve blue denim jacket and a small blue backpack hung off her shoulders. Finally, she had startlingly blue hair put back in a ponytail similar to his, except for bangs which framed her eyes. And here was the kicker: her eyes were white. One could obviously tell where the cornea ended and the iris began, and the pupil was still there, but the iris itself was white. Freaky. She looked to be around 16-18, but the lines on her skin made it obvious that she was either a full cyborg, or, though extremely less likely, an android. Freaky, just freaky. Why was everything reminding him of the Tachikoma today?

He stood up slowly, dusted off a little, and shook his head to clear it of its Tachikoma infestation. "No problem," he mumbled and sauntered off, thinking he would drown himself in booze.

He turned back to look at her before he rounded the corner. She was still standing there looking at him.

What a strange little blue girl.

--

About a month and several missions later, Batou got a day off again, so he thought he would go wander the waterways and open-air bazaars once more. For some reason, the image of that blue girl had reappeared in his mind recently and had been bugging him ever since.

He walked slowly into that same open-air bazaar, lost in thought once again.

Why was the image of that girl bugging him? He could understand why the Tachikoma had been stuck in his mind for a long time, but now they had been replaced by the image of that girl. He wasn't becoming attracted to her was he? No, just no. He was not a pedophile. Well, that would be if she really were as old as her synthetic body made her look. Dang it, he was doing it-

"CRAP!!!" Batou once again found himself flat on his ass, with an unreasonably heavy girl (as skinny as she was) lying on top of him.

"Owwww…stupid no braking wheels…and right when I was getting some food too…I'm terribly sorry sir, I won't……oh, its you again!" She immediately stood up clutching a brown paper bag. At this point, Batou finally noticed the wet slimy sensation he felt on his chest. Apparently, going by smell, the blue girl had bought peaches from one of the rare produce sellers down here in the slums, and now at least one of them was staining his favorite shirt.

"Aw man, and this was my favorite shirt too. I am really having a bad month." Batou shook his head and looked up at the strange little blue girl. She seemed to be debating something. After a moment, she looked up with an out of place cheery face.

"I'm really very sorry sir, and to make it up to you, let me wash out that stain. My home is really very close to here."

Batou had to debate this for a second. A cute girl he never met had just willingly invited him to her home, and offered to wash a stain in his shirt, which involved him running around without a shirt on in this girl's apartment or whatever. Truly a difficult decision.

"Oh, and my name is Sekiyu" she said with a mischievous face.

"Sekiyu? Your name is Oil? Strange name…" Sekiyu only smiled more.

"Come on!" Sekiyu grabbed him by the arm and started rolling off towards one corner of the bazaar. She eventually led him to an alley where they stopped in front of a locked door of an old run-down, warehouse-like building. She proceeded to reach into her cluttered belt and produced a large ring of keys, and grabbed the only one that was colored blue. Once she had unlocked the door, she then led him past a fairly large kitchen area to an adjacent closet with a washer and dryer in it.

"Ok, I'll get out that stain now, if you want?" At this point Batou realized that he was wearing and undershirt, and would not be able to impress the girl with his physic, so he took off his shirt and let the girl wash it.

As Batou stood around waiting for the girl to get done with her work, he noticed a familiar big blue jacket hung up on one of the pegs on the wall. If someone a little smaller that him wore it along with a hat, they would be completely obscured, and no one would know who they were. Its familiarity jogged something in his mind. There was something familiar about that girl. What was it though? Her hair? No. Her clothes? No. Her voice? ...That was it. Her voice sounded familiar for some reason.

"Sir?"

Batou jerked up, coming out of his reverie. "Yes?"

"I never got your name?" Sekiyu tilted her head to one side.

"Oh, uh, its Batou," he said slightly nervously. Wait, why was he nervous?

"Well then Mister Batou, how come you were walking around the market, all zoned out?"

"Well, I, uh…I was remembering some friends that I haven't heard from in awhile."

"Oh."

Awkward silence. Batou hated awkward silences.

Thankfully, before he could stand it no longer, a loud crash sounded from one of the other rooms, followed by several decidedly female exclamations.

"Oh great, what are they doing now?" She started to glide towards one of the other doors in the kitchen.

"Who?"

"Oh, uh, my sisters. I live here with all seven of them."

"SEVEN?!?" But she was already through the other door. Batou, after a moment of trepidation, followed quickly after.

In the other room, sprawled in a pile, were seven girls who looked exactly like their sister. Each wore slightly different clothes, and had a slightly different hairstyle, but beyond that they were all identical to each other. Two immediately stood up from the pile as Sekiyu approached them. One of them immediately started in on a narrative of what exactly happened, and from the bits and pieces of the conversation he could hear, the physics of the whole thing. The difference in her clothes that instead of blue denim shorts and jacket, she just wore a blue denim set of overalls with the legs ripped off short. Her hair was still the same vivid blue, but instead of a ponytail, she had a bob cut, and glasses completed the look of this "smart girl." From what he heard Sekiyu say, her name was apparently Chinou, which, not surprisingly, meant "Brain." The other girl which remained quiet until Sekiyu started asking questions, however, startled Batou quite a bit. She looked exactly like a smaller version of the Major herself. She wore long blue jeans over combat boots and a white, form-fitting, bathing suit-like piece of battle armor exactly like the Major's. Her vivid blue hair was cut in the same style as the major's too. He picked her name from the conversation as being Tsurugi, which fit well in the looks like the major theme in that it mean "Sword."

Before he could get a good look at the rest of them, every single one of them noticed him at the same time. Being stared at by 8 pairs of white eyes was kinda spooky. But what came next was the truly spooky part.

"Oh Kami-sama, its Mister Batou!" This came from Chinou, not Sekiyu, who he had never met, nor been introduced too. Then six other voices chimed in with "Its Mister Batou!"

For the first time in his life, Batou feinted.

They sounded exactly like the Tachikoma.

No…

They WERE the Tachikoma.

No wonder she was such a strange little blue girl.

--

A/N: And so that's the end of that. There is a bit of backstory to this, but I didn't think I could fit it in here. Surprisingly though, even though I intended this to be a oneshot story, the evil plotbunnies demanded that I come up with a multi chapter idea based off of this. So as it stands, there may or may not be a sequel to this, it depends heavily on how I feel, and how my other three multi-chapter fics are coming along.

As always though, if you want me to write more, R&R. Encouragement always makes a writer work faster.


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